Basement or detached garage shop?

**jdschulteis** · 10-27-2005, 10:09 PM

I'm in a similar situation, except that the garage/shop is the third bay of an attached garage.

For the basement, the negatives are dust and noise control, plus the inconvenience of moving machinery and material down and finished projects up.

For the garage, it's the $$$$ of running electricity, insulating, and providing some kind of climate control.

LOML says garage, so guess where I'm working on setting up shop . . .

**gmack5** · 10-28-2005, 12:56 AM

I tried a Basement Shop when I was living in Iowa......forget it! It's too much trouble getting stuff up and down the stairs! Besides, it drastically limits the size of the stuff you can build down there because the entrance doors are smaller.

I've also had my Wood Shop in a Garage, much preferred!
Large door to bring materials in and projects out, plus lots of fresh air, if you want it, to say nothing of the peace and quiet of not upsetting the family and waking people up if you want to work late at nite.

**SteveR** · 10-28-2005, 09:14 AM

quote:Originally posted by gmack5

I tried a Basement Shop when I was living in Iowa......forget it! It's too much trouble getting stuff up and down the stairs! Besides, it drastically limits the size of the stuff you can build down there because the entrance doors are smaller.

I've also had my Wood Shop in a Garage, much preferred!
Large door to bring materials in and projects out, plus lots of fresh air, if you want it, to say nothing of the peace and quiet of not upsetting the family and waking people up if you want to work late at nite.

Ditto the above comments. I have had a basement shop and a garage shop. The noise and dust issue was a big problem with the basement, along with trying to drag plywood/materials/tools down there.....major PITA. Garage shop hands down!! You will love it.

**Tom Miller** · 10-28-2005, 10:20 AM

Basement shop, definitely! You'd be crazy not to!

Well, I do like having my shop in the basement, but there are so many factors involved. The big one for me is that I couldn't see myself heating and cooling a three car garage for the one-stall shop. And I would have had to share that space.

My basement shop is almost exactly the same square footage as yours would be, which is not huge, but it's enough, and it's all mine.

I've got a decent DC, so dust is not a problem. Neither is noise, since the bedrooms are on the second floor, and the living room above is not used as much as other rooms.

My shop time is made up of an hour here and there, with a little more on weekends, so accessibility is important. I wouldn't want to have to wait for the place to warm up or cool down.

Regards,
Tom

**don_hart** · 10-28-2005, 12:48 PM

I preferr the garage shop. In my case I have an entire oversized two car garage. I have had plans to build a dedicated shop with an additional 1 bay garage attached to it for a while but my wife has asked me to gold off for a while. I agreed with the provision that until we build the new building we do not have a garage we have a shop. We will have a garage again when I move the shop into the new building.

So no cars get parked in the garage under normal circumstances. I do make exceptions when we go on vacation. Then I move all the tools to one side so we can park a car in there while we are gone.

As for heating. I have a 150k BTU kerosene torpedo heater that I use to warm the shop up and a standard 40k BTU kerosene heater I run to maintain the temp while I am working. I don't worry about air conditioning.

I would suggest you discuss with you better half fixing the garage but with the understanding that it is your shop.

**vaking** · 10-28-2005, 04:07 PM

I live in a basement now. Never had a garage shop but here is how I see it:
Unfortunately it is a finished basement, I can't hang my lumber on walls because those walls won't hold it. Entrance is small and awkward, getting stuff in and out is hard. Noise interferes with family. If you build home theater next to your workshop - make sure not to be in your workshop when "They" want to watch the show. Dust is harder to contain. Height is very limited. Laundry is in the basement, so my wife has to go through the shop to get to laundry. You constantly find some laundry baskets and other stuff that somehow lands in your basement but not supposed to be there. Still, my workshop and my office are in the basement and that basement is my castle and escape, I spend hours there, some of it working wood, some on the computer.
In the garage you will need to spend time + money running wires, electricity, heat. There are definite pluses - bigger space (unles you have to share with cars), easy access with lumber, tools, products. No noise problems, dust handling is easy. The negative side - heating the garage all the time will probably get expensive. If you only heat it when working - becomes a hassle to worm it up. I guess the answer which is better depends largely on your habits. If you spend large amount of time in the shop - garage is probably better. If you use it an hour a day - I would stay in a basement.
I don't know if that makes sense to you.

**Knottscott** · 10-29-2005, 06:03 AM

There's always lots of valid arguments either way. I've got a friend who has a basement shop. It's looks like a dream to me in August when I'm melting and freezing in Dec/Jan/Feb/Mar in my garage. But I've also helped him move a 500# BS, a 465# DP, and a 425# TS down there [:0]...moving them up doesn't sound fun either. Ideally a walk out basement would be the ticket. If you can insulate, heat, and cool your garage, you'd have plenty to smile about.

**softop41** · 10-29-2005, 06:43 AM

I am currently in an insulated, heated shop in my detached garage. It isn't air conditioned but I have good flow through ventilation so it isn't too bad in the summer. I like it a lot because I can work any time I want(such as early morning) without disturbing LOML. We want to move and most places will send me to the basement where heating and A/C will be available but the noise issue is going to be tough to beat. Most of the newer houses around here also have a 180 degree turn in the basement stairs which will have the same difficulties as Dustmight mentioned as well as presenting a problem with long stock and sheet goods. All of a sudden, my detached garage is looking better and better even though I have a lot of leaves to clean up every fall and grass to mow all summer.

**jziegler** · 10-29-2005, 07:33 PM

Thanks for the input everyone.

I have already discussed with the wife, and most likely will be going with the garage. I had not been thinking about the sheet goods too much, although after it was mentioned, I remembered quickly how difficult they are to get in the basement. a 4x8 sheet just barely fits down the outside stairs. I think that the basement shop would be large enough for me, but the extra space in the garage seems nice. I don't imagine parking a car in there regularly. First, there would be the discussion of who gets to use it. And, it would require new doors, which I don't really want to do. The old sliding doors are nice.

My main reason for asking was to see if there were any concerns that I had forgotten about, and I think I had most of it covered. I will see what the contractor says about fixing the garage up, and go from there. If it's beyond repair, I may consider replacing it with a large pre-fab shed and using that as a shop.

-Jim

**Bulkley** · 11-01-2005, 12:32 PM

The wife is always an important consideration in these decisions. Do yourself a favour and mount all your tools and benches on castors so they can be pushed aside for parking the car.

The best advice I ever had for a small shop is to measure the height of your table saw and keep all other cabinets and tool platforms at/or below that level. It makes it a lot easier when cutting long stock.

**JimD** · 11-01-2005, 02:56 PM

I've done both. In my current house, we built largely to get space for my tools. I have an extra garage in the basement with 8 1/2 foot high walls and about 400 square feet of irregularly shaped space. You could park one car in it (but not with my tools in there!). There is a window and single car garage door (we have a walk out basement). I put up stud walls to run wiring and put in insulation. The family room above me gets noisy when I am in the shop but it doesn't bother me. The family turns the TV up. The two big advantages are decent temperature control without having to pay for it and not having to move tools or clean up for cars to be parked. My last shop was the front 10 foot of a 24 x 28 foot two car garage. I could do little stuff with the cars inside but had to put them outside for large projects. The ceiling was lower and my wife did not like the mess the projects left on the cars. If you and your wife are OK with either leaving the cars outside or putting up with some wood dust on the floor at least some of the time, the garage may be your best bet. What makes my basement shop really nice is the outside garage door to move stuff in and out and the nice high ceilings.

Jim

**jziegler** · 11-01-2005, 07:33 PM

The walk out basement sounds just about ideal. While I do have a seperate basement door, there are steep steps to get to it. Very difficult to get the sheet goods in and out.

As for parking in the garage, that will rarel happen, and the wife is OK with that. Her parents have never parked an everyday car in the garage (her dad has a VW thing that is in the garage, gets driven a couple times a year). I've only ever had the luxury of garage parking for about a year. So, it's nothing that either of us will miss. I was planning to put the tools on wheels anyway, so that should allow us to get the cars in for vacations, mischief night, and the like. Parking in the garage will not be fun unless I replace the old sliding doors with overhead doors anyway, and for a workshop I think I prefer the sliding ones.

And, for the record, my wife is in favor of moving the shop because of the noise.

-Jim

Basement or detached garage shop?

Basement or detached garage shop?

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